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Item does not contain fulltext New treatments for Alzheimer's disease require early detection of cognitive decline. Most studies seeking to identify markers of early cognitive decline have focused on a limited number of measures. We sought to establish the profile of brain function measures which best define early neuropsychological decline. We compared subjects with subjective memory complaints to normative controls on a wide range of EEG derived measures, including a new measure of event-related spatio-temporal waves and biophysical modeling, which derives anatomical and physiological parameters based on subject's EEG measurements. Measures that distinguished the groups were then related to cognitive performance on a variety of learning and executive function tasks. The EEG measures include standard power measures, peak alpha frequency, EEG desynchronization to eyes-opening, and global phase synchrony. The most prominent differences in subjective memory complaint subjects were elevated alpha power and an increased number of spatio-temporal wave events. Higher alpha power and changes in wave activity related most strongly to a decline in verbal memory performance in subjects with subjective memory complaints, and also declines in maze performance and working memory reaction time. Interestingly, higher alpha power and wave activity were correlated with improved performance in reverse digit span in the subjective memory complaint group. The modeling results suggest that differences in the subjective memory complaint subjects were due to a decrease in cortical and thalamic inhibitory gains and slowed dendritic time-constants. The complementary profile that emerges from the variety of measures and analyses points to a nonlinear progression in electrophysiological changes from early neuropsychological decline to late-stage dementia, and electrophysiological changes in subjective memory complaint that vary in their relationships to a range of memory-related tasks. 26 p.

The effects of 11 antipsychotic drugs on the pyruvate dehydrogenase complex (PDHC) prepared from bovine heart and rat brain were investigated. All inhibited PDHC to varying extents. With clinically equivalent doses, chlorpromazine and thioridazine inhibited the most and fluphenazine and thiothixene the least. The relationship of degree of inhibition of PDHC by neuroleptics to clinical improvement of 32 outpatients treated with acetazolamide and thiamine (A + T) ancillary therapy for chronic mental illness suggests that patients treated with psychoactive drugs that inhibit PDHC the least are most likely to have a favorable response with A + T treatment.

A population of six adolescent—adult gibbons (three males and three females) were observed in a controlled environment in order to assess any social behavior adaptations related to forced aggregation and to a physical environment which differed from the native habitat in that there were no predators, no food scarcity and the geographic range was limited to 1.5 acres. Data on location, size and composition of naturally formed social groupings revealed that certain gibbons avoided social contact with certain others. This observation is discussed in relation toChance's (1967) concept of “attention structure.” It is viewed as representative of a dominance hierarchy serving gibbons as a social behavior adaptation when forced to aggregate.

Department of Psychiatry, Rutgers Medical School, College of Medicine andDentistry of New Jersey, Piscataway, New Jersey (R.D.DJ; and Social BiologyLab, Rockland Research Institute, Orangeburg, New York (A.H.E., K.M.S.)This is a study of an institutionalized group of female adolescents observed for a nine-week period. These girls were observed to determine the characteristics of their domi-nance relations and how, in turn, this aspect of their social environment was related touse of their physical environment. Correlational analyses between observatiotial andsociometric data suggested that dominance rank was based upon the frequency of beingthe recipient of a dominance act. Fewer dominance acts were initiated against higherranking girls. Dominance ranking was not based upon frequency of initiating a domi-nance act towards others. Higher ranking girls were the ones most frequently observedalone in their own bedroom. Bedrooms were highly desirable areas used for grooming(eg, setting hair, ironing clothes, putting on cosmetics, resting) as girls sought to gainpopularity with the institution's male population. Comparison of results with findingsin similar studies on male adolescents suggest some tentative generalizations as to sexdifference in dominance and territoriality.Key words: adolescents, dominance hierarchy, territoriality, sex differences

Twenty-four chronic schizophrenic patients were treated successfully with the addition of acetazolamide and thiamine (A + T) to their unchanged existing therapies in a double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover study. Therapeutic effects were measured by the Scale for the Assessment of Positive Symptoms and the Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms. Overall, 50% of the patients showed improvement on all assessment scales. No untoward effects occurred in these patients or in patients in previous studies who have been treated continuously with A + T therapy for as long as 3 years.

Our aims was to "tonify" chronic psychiatric patients, i.e., restore their physiological homeostasis and sense of well-being by using standardized acupuncture. In eighteen subjects, eleven diagnosed as schizophrenic, feelings of well-being lasting no longer than three days were obtained in over 60% of the treatments. In more than two-thirds of the cases normalization of blood pressure values tending to 120/80 was evident. Degree of physiological change did not appear to be associated with overall psychological improvement; neither was the number of treatments associated with long-term improvement. For further studies, increased treatment frequency and less rigidly controlled procedures are suggested.

A new approach to social ecology is offered which attempts to integrate a variety of theories, each of which approaches the problem of man's relationship to his environment from a different perspective. It is postulated that man refers to the environment to achieve not one, but a multiplicity of purposes. To each purpose corresponds a type of environmental orientation. Four such orientations are distinguished: the instrumental, the territorial, the sentimental, and the symbolic. Each orientation is manifested in two modes, one more and one less institutionalized. To each mode corresponds a regulative mechanism or process which leads to a characteristic type of environmental organization. The types of environmental organization represent the spatial correlates of the main institutional spheres of society. Three theoretical problems are high-lighted by the paradigm: the problem of ecological institutionalization, the problem of the ecological consequences of the different orientations, and the problem of ec...

Three young gibbons, who had minimal previous social contact with each other, were released together in a semi-natural environment. The individual and social behavior of the gibbons paralleled that of gibbons in the wild: of the total daytime, 71% was spent in foraging activities, 20% in social interaction, and 9% in inactivity.

Summary The introduction of a sheltered workshop on a ward of 20 chronic schizophrenics has greatly influenced the behavior of the majority of them. Industrial productivity has become an important part of our research on activity, location, and interaction of patients. We present preliminary results obtained during 85 consecutive weeks of which the workshop operated 53 weeks. o 1. In most cases the capacity to work seems to be independent of intelligence and clinical picture. Seventy per cent of our patients, including some severely regressed, have reacted positively to the opportunity to work for money. This observation may be of use in ascertaining the potential of chronic patients. 2. Drug administration or withdrawal in the majority of regularly working patients did not influence the average output of our (simple) types of work, but it did affect the weekly variation in output. Some implications of these findings are discussed in relation to our policies regarding the mentally ill.

The organizer of this session and the authors of this paper believe their contributions are most significant in the expansion into workable form of the humanistic orientation of the founders of our fields, while offering strong remedial responses in line with their forewarnings against inhumanistic use as the fields developed. Our central formulation is that the human being, with his Human Brain and Human Knowledge Process, is a special product of biological evolution, an evolving evolutionary system forming general system whose appearance has introduced a new type of evolution - noogenetic or knowledge evolution - that is rapidly replacing biological evolution as the primary source of system forming in ourselves and in our world. The theme and content of our paper are summarized in a series of premises about the evolution and function of the Human Brain, which portray a way of thinking and working that is more in concordance with the realities of our present world and its future evolution. The point of view they represent is supported by rapidly accumulating convergent evidence from work being carried on in a variety of fields. We would recommend their incorporation into ongoing and planned cybernetics and systems research.

Viewed in the contexts of space and time, all animal behavior is inconspicuous; for only the young or diseased specimens of a species exhibit less than perfect adaptation to their physical environment. Our growing awareness of complex spatial relationships among objects, together with our perception of these relationships, enables us to determine the role they play in our lives.

On the spring of last year, diphosphopyridine nucleotide (DPN or NAD, coenzyme I of the cellular oxidation-reduction systems) was claimed to be effective in short-term treatment of schizophrenia. 1 This method of treatment was based on the results of studies showing the purported beneficial effect of long-term administration of niacin (nicotinic acid, a constituent of the vitamin B complex) or its derivative niacinamide in schizophrenia. 2,3 Since niacinamide is an integral part of the coenzyme, it was suggested that these therapeutic effects were exerted by diphosphopyridine nucleotide and could readily be elicited by administering 1 to 2 gm of this preparation orally; 75% of the treated cases were said to show undeniable improvement five to seven days after the beginning of treatment. 1 Our evaluation of diphosphopyridine for the treatment of patients with chronic schizophrenia who were residing in our research ward will be reported in full in a speciality